BusinessDay contributing editor

Moneyball, the successful book and movie, showed how an economist's feeling for statistics turned a professional baseball upside down. Now an Australian economist's examination of the numbers destroys the local sugar lobby's key defence against linking fructose to obesity and diabetes.

The sugar industry is a big fan of what self-described "economist and former fattie", Rory Robertson, calls "the low-GI crew" – a high profile group of Sydney University nutritionists who promote the health benefits of food with a low glycemic index and downplay, if not completely dismiss, claims that fructose is a prime suspect in our obesity and diabetes epidemics.

The low-GI crew is about as high profile as academic nutritionists can get: Professor Jennie Brand-Miller, AM, author of the Low GI Diet book; Bill Shrapnel, Sydney University Nutrition Research Foundation deputy chairman; and Dr Alan Barclay, the Australian Diabetes Council's head of research.

The cornerstone of their defence of sugar is what they have termed "the Australian Paradox" – the claim that Australians' sugar consumption has fallen by 23 per cent over the past 30 years while obesity and diabetes has soared. Thus, they argue, sugar must be innocent.

There are others who claim sugar is guilty as hell, with none arguing the case against sugar most forcefully than David Gillespie, lawyer and author of three Sweet Poison books. Faced with Gillespie's theories, Professor Brand-Miller cites the Australian Paradox. "That to me blows David Gillespie's hypothesis out of the window (sic)," she says. Want a quote attacking those who attack sugar, ring the low-GI crew and you'll get the Australian Paradox.

But what if there is no Australian Paradox? What if Australians' sugar consumption has been rising and the low-GI crew's key statistic is simply wrong?

Enter Rory Robertson, unaware there was an academic debate raging when he came across Gillespie's book, cut fructose from his diet last May and lost 10 kg without any extra exercise. As a believer then through personal experience, he subsequently found the Australian Paradox more than a little strange, applied his economist's training to dig into the source of the nutritionists' statistic and now charges that it is not true.

Taking aim

In a research paper (done on his own time, not that of his bank employer) circulated to friends and colleagues for comment, Robertson takes issue with several aspects of the low-GI crew's defence of sugar:

"My main concern, however, is the low-GI crew's unreasonable treatment of the available data on Australian sugar consumption. Its regular claim - "In Australia sugar consumption has dropped 23 per cent since 1980" - is woefully misleading, based as it is on a series that was abandoned by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) as unreliable a decade ago.

"Last year, Dr Alan Barclay and Professor Jennie Brand-Miller lifted the status of the "it's not sugar" story a couple of notches, publishing an academic paper that concluded: "This analysis of [i] apparent consumption, [ii] national dietary surveys and [iii] food industry data indicates a consistent and substantial decline in total refined or added sugar consumption by Australians over the past 30 years".

"The low-GI crew then declared an 'Australian Paradox' in the relationship between sugar consumption (down) and obesity (up). Unfortunately, the paper's conclusion is largely at odds with the available facts on Australian per capita sugar consumption.

"Bizarrely, the low-GI crew seems somewhat unaware that its own charts illustrate clearly that the longer-term trend in measures (i) and (ii) is up not down... the available national nutrition surveys show per capita "total sugars" consumption rose not fell for both adults (between 1983 and 1995) and children (between 1985 and 2007). Second, per-capita soft-drink consumption rose not fell over the available 1994-2006 period."

Robertson says the paper did not mention that the only timely official (ABARE) information on Australia-wide "sugar availability" (production less exports) also suggested the trend over the past 22 years had been up, not down.

“The trend in domestic “sugar availability” per capita (population data in table 4) over the past two decades has been up, from near the bottom of a 40-60kg range to the top of that range in 2009-10.

Apparent consumption

But the big figure in this argument, the cornerstone of the Australian Paradox, is the "apparent consumption" number. What Robertson found after some digging and questioning of the Australian Bureau of Statistics, is that:

"The "apparent consumption" series on which the low-GI crew's strong conclusion is based (1980-2003) simply was downloaded from the website of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). The low-GI crew may or may not be aware that the downloaded series from the FAO's website actually was produced by the ABS for decades, until it stopped counting after providing estimates for 1998-99.

"Anyone familiar with the ABS would be aware that it is rather unusual for it to stop producing a dataset that already spans 60 years, particularly when the topic was becoming more rather than less relevant.

"The low-GI crew either remains oblivious to this data dead-end, or simply chooses not to mention it. Either way, it's hard to say anything useful about "the past 30 years" when the ABS stopped even pretending to measure of sugar consumption after printing an estimate for 1998-99, some 12 years ago...

"You probably guessed that the ABS didn't give up counting sugar after 1998-99 because it couldn't find any. The problems began when it came time to add imported sugar to domestic "sugar availability". Discussions with the ABS confirm that it struggled to know how much sugar was in the rapidly growing imports of things like bakery products, confectionary, soft-drinks, cordial and syrup, processed fruit and vegetables, and "other processed foods".

"Someone smart might be able to guess how much sugar is in those imports. I have no idea. And neither does the low-GI crew. Most of what we do know is that: (i) all the available refined sugar– about 60kg per capita per year after exports – in 2009-10 had a total worth less than $1 billion at wholesale prices, while (ii) total food imports in 2009-10 amounted to about $10b at retail prices, with imports of sugary items growing pretty strongly. You tell me how much sugar was in those imports? All I'm suggesting is that there's room for quite a bit...

"Breaking the available 22 years of this dataset into two halves, we find that "sugar availability" was 22% higher in the second half than in the first half. Up 22%, not down 23%!

"Clearly, this chunky rise in "sugar availability" over the 22 years to 2009-10 should have made the low-GI crew question its view that sugar consumption has fallen substantially over "the past 30 years". That's especially the case when it almost certainly had seen David Gillespie's chart for the past half century, showing elevated sugar availability for over much of the period but a particular "soft patch in the mid to late 1980s.

"In summary, and contrary to the inaccurate claims of the low-GI crew, there appear to be no reliable or timely data series showing a significant decline in per capita sugar/fructose consumption over "the past 30 years".

"The "true" trend in sugar consumption over recent decades remains uncertain but the available evidence - from (i) the two-decade uptrends in sugar availability and sugary imports; (ii) national dietary surveys and (iii) industry data on soft-drink sales - suggests that if anything it's more likely to be up than down significantly, as claimed."

Robertson, fresh from winning his high-profile bet against Professor Steve Keen over housing prices, wants to donate $10,000 to a health department or non-conflicted university to help fund a definitive experiment to compare the effect on obese people of a no fructose diet, a low GI diet and a control group eating their normal intake. He is not a scientist and says there is more science to be done – but he does know his way around a set of statistics.

Michael Pascoe is a BusinessDay contributing editor – who has a love of fructose-laden dark chocolate.

18 comments

I agree with this 100%. I come from a family with a history of diabetes and as I am now in my 30's mainly tied to a desk I am in the high risk stage of developing it. So I made a concious decision to cut Sugar out of my diet, where possible of course. Sweets, breads etc... I have lost around 10kgs and feel much better. I have seen what diabetes can do to a person and not eating ice cream and cake is a small price to pay. it all comes down to energy in and energy out, sugar is one of the most potent forms of energy in so if you are not excercising regularly this energy will become fat and wreak havoc with your body in the process.

Commenter

LH

Location

Pyrmont

Date and time

March 07, 2012, 11:04AM

Very interesting. I went on to a low GI diet some years ago and things improved slightly, but I still had IBS symptoms and high cholesterol, though I lost a little weight.

After some extensive reading lately I have now moved onto a No sugar and very low carbohydrate diet and bingo, my weight is dropping, my IBS has all but disappeared and my cholesterol has dropped and now shows good ratios of good to bad cholesterol. I am off statins for the first time for ten years.

I am SO EXCITED. Try it everyone, if you have high cholesterol, diabetes, are overweight or have IBS. It is supposed to much lower the risk of dementia as well.

It is not easy, but I have not felt hungry one. I don't limit fats at all, so it is eggs and bacon for brekky and cream in my coffee!! But no low fat items any more as they are mostly filled with carbs to give them taste, and no sugar of any kind.

Interestingly my tastes have changed after a terrible first week craving carbs, now I am not interested and my sweet tooth has totally gone.

I think we have been being misled for years.

Commenter

SarWen

Location

Melbourne

Date and time

March 07, 2012, 11:38AM

Interesting article but I'm a little perplexed why you an economist wrote it..

Commenter

LukeK

Date and time

March 07, 2012, 11:44AM

It must be pointed out that the Low GI Diet does NOT advocate eating sugar. The tone of this article is very misleading. This is an argument about a minor part of the theory. By following a low GI diet you would never consume large amounts of sugar. Low GI is about controlling the level of sugar in your blood and avoiding highs and lows. Avoiding highs necessarily means avoiding refined sugars. What Mr Robinson's analysis shows us is that Australians in general are eating way too much sugar and getting fat. Good, but that does not mean Low GI is wrong, if anything it actually supports low GI as the best way to remain healthy. Losing weight is only one aspect of health. It is no good getting thin if your body is not receiving proper nutrition.

Human nutrition can never be as simple as stop sugar lose weight. If it was that simple there would not be an overweight person in the world.

Commenter

GregE

Location

Melbourne

Date and time

March 07, 2012, 11:48AM

What the low-GI people are suggesting is contrary to what's been happening all around us for the past 30 years. Just walk into a service station and see if you can find a food item that is not heavily sugar based, and in supermarkets there has been a proliferation of low fat (high sugar) foods.

Commenter

Jezz

Date and time

March 07, 2012, 11:58AM

Oh no, the academic establishment is playing silly buggers with the record of a series of statistical measurements to suit their own agenda, this time insisting that the series is decreasing when in fact it is increasing.

Someone give these guys a well paid role in a newly created government commission.

Commenter

alfredC

Date and time

March 07, 2012, 12:00PM

Don't the Low GI crew also license their "Low GI" endorsement label to sugary products in return for a percentage of sales?

This data problem appears to be so bad, that one should pay no attention to them.

Commenter

Jimhaz

Location

Occupy Cronyist Governments

Date and time

March 07, 2012, 12:27PM

Protecting an industry that has wiped out our precious rainforests to grow their their poison- given us the cane toad (more bungled research) and left us with a tooth decayed, obese nation! Thanks, sugar industry.

Commenter

SMILEMAN

Location

Noosa

Date and time

March 07, 2012, 1:26PM

Look around - everybody is fat or getting that way. I am in Ipswich QLD at the moment and I am shocked how obese so many people are. Do a bit of research on fructose (AKA corn syrup) and be horrified.